Checkride preparation and document review

The candidate leaves with every checkride document verified against its source requirement, a written action list for anything missing, a resolved ferry figure, and an understanding of what happens if they do not pass. Nothing procedural is left to be discovered on the morning of the test.

This is the first lesson in this program whose completion standard is not a taught presentation, and the exception is deliberate. Lesson 39 is administrative work done properly, with the candidate present, and pretending otherwise would produce a worse lesson. US-4.1's taught-presentation rule governs technical subject lessons. This is not one.

Because every part of it fails when it is done at a distance.

1. Half the documents are in the candidate's possession and only they know where. A checklist run without them produces a record of what the instructor believes.
2. The items are seen, not described. The logbook is open on the table. "I have it at home" is an action item with a date, not a tick.
3. The ferry figure requires both of you. Parameter P10 resolves here, and it resolves against a real examiner at a real airport, which is information that did not exist until the test was booked.
4. The disapproval conversation has to happen face to face, before the test, while it is hypothetical. That is the whole of US-8.4.

Elements 1 to 7 are policy/CHECKRIDE-DOCUMENT-CHECKLIST.md worked end to end. Do not paraphrase it in this lesson. Open it and run it.

Elements 9 to 12 are policy/DISAPPROVAL-AND-DISCONTINUANCE.md, handed over and walked through.

Ground only, 90 minutes. Reconciles with the declared 1.5 ground and 0 dual.

Instructor: policy/CHECKRIDE-DOCUMENT-CHECKLIST.md, printed, one copy per candidate, to be filled in and filed. policy/DISAPPROVAL-AND-DISCONTINUANCE.md, to hand over. policy/CHECKRIDE-AIRCRAFT-AND-COST.md. The candidate's knowledge test deficiency log from policy/KNOWLEDGE-TEST-DEFICIENCY-CLOSURE.md. The candidate's copy of program/COVERAGE-MATRIX.md. Live access to eCFR and to the FAA ACS page, because the citations are re-verified today rather than inherited.

Candidate: their logbook or logbooks. Both original knowledge test reports. Pilot certificate, photo identification, and medical certificate. Their view limiting device. Their IACRA login. Anything they believe is an endorsement.

Aircraft: none flown. N41459's records are needed, or confirmation of where in the airplane they live.

Taught Ground Lesson: no. The candidate is not teaching in this lesson, so it is not a Taught Ground Lesson as CONTEXT.md defines one, and it generates no Coverage. Meeting title convention: not applicable Fallback if capture fails: not applicable What is recorded instead: the completed checklist, signed and dated, in the candidate's records file. That is the artifact this lesson produces and it is a permanent record, per US-8.3.

1. Open the checklist and work it in order. Do not skip ahead to the items you expect to be a problem. The value is in the ones nobody was worried about.
2. See every physical item. Hands on the logbook, eyes on the dates. A candidate saying "yes, that one is fine" is not verification, and the point of running this a week out is that being wrong is cheap today.
3. Re-verify the citations live, today. Cross-cutting requirement 4 is not satisfied by the date printed on the checklist. eCFR currency moves, and sources/FAA-SOURCES.md records a pending amendment against 61.51.
4. Read the spin endorsement out loud, word by word. Check for competence and instructional proficiency, for all four of stall awareness, spin entry, spins, and spin recovery, and for the aircraft. This is the single most valuable minute in the lesson.
5. Do the ferry arithmetic with them, not for them. Examiner, airport, round trip time, and the school's hourly aircraft rate from /RATES.md. Parameter P10 resolves here and it resolves as a number they worked out.
6. Hand over the disapproval explainer and walk it through. Do not leave it as a reading. Ask them the continue-or-stop question and let them answer it.
7. Work out both clocks on a whiteboard using their actual booked date. The 60 day credit clock and the 2 calendar month completion clock, and which is shorter for them.
8. Write the action list in front of them, with owners and dates, and book the day-before confirmation pass into the calendar before they leave.

Simulated Student script notes

Not applicable. There is no Simulated Student in this lesson and no role play. The candidate is themselves, working through their own documents.

One thing to do instead, and it is worth the two minutes. Once the checklist is complete, ask the candidate to explain the difference between a notice of disapproval and a letter of discontinuance back to you, as if you were a Student who had just failed one. They will be teaching this to somebody within a year, and it is the one piece of today's content they will need to deliver rather than merely hold.

1. Arrive with every document listed under Equipment, physically present.
2. Work through the checklist with the instructor, item by item, finding each document themselves.
3. Read their own spin endorsement out loud and say whether it meets each line of the 61.183(i)(1) test.
4. Work out the ferry time and cost with the instructor, against the actual examiner and airport.
5. Answer the continue-or-stop question, and say why.
6. Work out both post-discontinuance clocks against their own booked test date.
7. Take away the action list, and own the items that are theirs.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate produces every document on policy/CHECKRIDE-DOCUMENT-CHECKLIST.md sections 1 to 5 physically, or the item is recorded as an action with an owner and a date. No item is left unresolved.
2. The candidate states, for at least six checklist items, the source requirement that item satisfies, without reading it off the checklist.
3. The candidate reads their own 61.183(i) spin endorsement and states whether it certifies instructional proficiency, naming that as distinct from certifying that training was received.
4. The candidate names the three possible outcomes of a practical test and states the difference between a notice of disapproval and a letter of discontinuance, including that a discontinuance is not a failure.
5. The candidate states what they would do if they failed a task partway through the test, choosing to continue or to stop, and gives a reason. Either answer meets this standard. Having no answer does not.
6. The candidate calculates both the 60 day credit clock and the 2 calendar month completion clock against their own booked test date, and states which one expires first.
7. The candidate states the ferry time and what they will pay for it, in hours against the school's hourly aircraft rate, having worked it out in the lesson.
8. The candidate states that a spin-related disapproval requires a retest in an airplane certificated for spins, and that N41459 is not established as one.

Standard 5 has no wrong answer and that is the point. It is testing whether they have made the decision in advance, not which decision they made.

Falling short does not block lesson 40. No proficiency gate (Decision 9). It triggers policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md. An unresolved item on the document checklist is different: that does not block a lesson, but per the checklist's own rule it can move the practical test, and a missing spin endorsement moves it without discussion.

These are candidate errors, and several of them are instructor errors first.

Not applicable. This is a ground lesson and no airplane is flown.

The field is retained rather than deleted, per the template. The intervention threshold for the mock flight is stated in lesson 41, and it is the same threshold used throughout phase 3.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• policy/CHECKRIDE-DOCUMENT-CHECKLIST.md, in full, before you arrive. You are going to be asked to produce these things, not read about them.
• policy/CHECKRIDE-AIRCRAFT-AND-COST.md, in full.
• 61.39(a) and 61.183, from the live regulation rather than from a summary. These are the two sections that say whether you are eligible.
• FAA-S-ACS-25 Appendix 1, the section headed Possible Outcomes of the Test.

Bring, and this is the deliverable:

• Your logbook or logbooks. All of them.
• Both original knowledge test reports. Originals, not photographs.
• Your pilot certificate, your photo identification, and your medical certificate.
• Your view limiting device.
• Your IACRA login, working, tested before you arrive.
• Anything you believe is your spin training endorsement.

Also bring one written page: your own list of every endorsement you think you need and the regulation that requires each. Written from the regulation, in your own words, before you read ours. We will compare the two lists, and the gaps in yours are the most useful thing this lesson produces.

Not applicable, and the field is retained rather than deleted.

Video Slots hold Clips of a Student flying a maneuver, per CONTEXT.md and Decision 32. This lesson teaches no maneuver and shows no flying. Per US-12.1 the Exemplar and Error requirement attaches to lessons that teach a maneuver, which this is not.

This lesson is complete and deliverable whether or not any Video Slots exist.

This lesson is graded on what the candidate produced and what they knew, not on how they presented. It is the one lesson in the program where that is true, and saying so avoids an instructor marking down a candidate for not teaching when they were not asked to teach.

The most diagnostic moment is standard 3. A candidate who reads their own spin endorsement and notices it says "received training in" rather than "is competent and possesses instructional proficiency in" has understood the single most expensive failure mode in this program. A candidate who reads it and says "looks fine" has not, and it is worth stopping the lesson to fix that understanding.

The second most diagnostic moment is standard 5. Candidates who have never considered the continue-or-stop question tend to answer "continue, obviously" without reference to their own state. The better answer names a condition. Push once, gently, and record what they said.

Record the ferry figure on the candidate's file. Parameter P10 resolves in this lesson and it resolves per candidate. It is not a program figure and it does not go in any artifact.

File the completed checklist. Signed, dated, and naming who ran it, per cross-cutting requirement 9. This lesson's output is a record, and a record that is not filed did not happen.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated. No Coverage is generated by this lesson, because the candidate is not teaching and Coverage credits only the candidate's teaching speech.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-8.3, US-8.4, US-8.5, US-7.3
• ✓Carries ACS areas and Part 61 references
• ✓Completion standards are observable behavior
• ✓Common candidate errors listed, each with the instructor's response
• ✓Intervention threshold marked not applicable, with the reason, rather than deleted
• ✓Student preparation named, in the student half
• ✓FAA references verified current, 2026-08-14, at title 14 currency 2026-08-12
• ✓Passes the design system check
• ✓Appears in the program structure, hours reconciling. Claims no new ACS task, which is what the coverage matrix records for phase 4
• ✓Both halves exist
• ✓Video Slots marked not applicable, with the reason, rather than deleted
• ✓Vocabulary matches CONTEXT.md
• ✓No em dashes, no reproduced flight manual numbers, no pricing
• ✓Falling short does not block progression (Decision 9)
• ✓The document checklist is run with the candidate present, at least a week before the test (US-8.3)
• ✓The disapproval explainer is handed over before the test, and the program says it happens here (US-8.4)
• ✓Parameter P10 resolves in this lesson, per ticket 18